Thursday, March 23, 2017

I’m not
talking aboutUltraviolet, the decidedly
B-grade movie with Milla Jovovich, which is currently sitting at 9% on Rotten
Tomatoes, but the rather excellent UK TV series from 1998. Here’s the teaser:

CJD. AIDS. Global warming. For the first time in history,
mankind has the ability to destroy itself. So now vampires need to take control
of their food source. Against this enemy, religion is no defence but folklore
has some truth. Not wooden stakes but carbon bullets. Not garlic but the
chemical allicin. Not simply daylight. Ultraviolet ...

So why was it so good? Well, it had an amazing cast …

Jack Davenport, Susannah Harker, Idris Elba, Philip Quast

… and an
intelligent, modern take on the vampire legend. The vampires inUltraviolet are ‘electronically invisible’. As Idris Elba’s
character Vaughan explains: ‘Look, the only machine that can see or hear a
leech is us. You can only see them face to face. No mirrors, no photos, no
videos. Audio’s the same. He can make a call, but his voice won’t go down the
line. Surveillance is a bitch.’

Over six episodes, a secret organisation of vampire hunters
funded by the British Government and the Vatican try to find out what the
vampires are planning for mankind who are, after all, their food source. Why
are they bankrolling research into leukemia; what about synthetic blood; and
why are they so interested in climate change? Even though the show is about the
undead, it features strong SF concepts right down to the guns fitted with video
screens to confirm potential vampire targets.

The writing is also a perfect lesson in showing not telling.
From episode one, we’re thrown right into the action. Nothing is explained and
the word ‘vampire’ is never used, but we discover the world and its threats
through the evolving action. The characters are also really well-drawn (and
acted). Jack Davenport’s Detective Mike Colefield is ambivalent about the
organisation’s tactics; Idris Elba’s Vaughan is driven by revenge after what
the vampire did to his army unit; Harker’s Angie Marsh lost her husband to the
vampires; and Quast’s Father Harman is worried about his own mortality. Through
the series, all the characters reveal strong arcs; they all want something,
which is ultimately denied them.

Even with such a short run, the show finishes on a satisfying
conclusion, although there is a possibility the story could continue. That
never happened. The show’s creator Joe Ahearne ended up writing and directing
all six episodes (not the original plan), which meant he was too busy with
season one production to plot out where the story might go next. In an
interview a couple of years later, he said that he’d fought hard to bring the
story to a final conclusion because they had no guarantee of being renewed. You
have to admire his integrity for doing that.

In 2000, an American reimagining by Fox Network, described as
a ‘sexy vampire soap opera’, made it to only one unaired pilot. So you
can still enjoyUltraviolet in all its self-contained and unspoiled glory.
Order the DVDhere. You won’t be disappointed.

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SF quotes

"the Culture had placed its bets—long before the Idiran war had been envisaged—on the machine rather than the human brain. This was because the Culture saw itself as being a self-consciously rational society; and machines, even sentient ones, were more capable of achieving this desired state as well as more efficient at using it once they had. That was good enough for the Culture."— Iain M. Banks